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New Worlds October/November/December 2011 (Holiday Gift Guide) Issue

Download the PDF File version of the latest issue of Llewellyn's New Worlds Catalog

Home > Encyclopedia > Term: witchcraft

Term: witchcraft

DEFINITIONS

Witchcraft: Among modern practitioners Witchcraft can be defined as the practice of magick and Paganism as it relates to pre-Christian European Paganism. The arts of Witchcraft include herbalism, divination, magick, ceremonial ritual, healing, potions, and spirit-world contact (familiars, elementals, etc.). Witchcraft, as depicted by the Church during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, is considered by many modern Witches to be a deliberate distortion of the facts.
source: Encyclopedia of Wicca & Witchcraft, by Raven Grimassi

ARTICLES

Witchcraft: What is it?

Candles gleam. Incense smoke swirls. Robed figures, chanting in a long-dead language, whirl around a rustic wooden table. On it sit sacred images�a robust female wearing a crescent Moon on her forehead, a horned male holding a spear in his upraised ...

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Witchcraft and Voodoo

Voodoo and Witchcraft are the two most misunderstood religions in the world. Each has a public image and an inner reality. Most frequently that public image has little to do with the private, inner and real religion. Voodoo Voodoo is a mixture of ...

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Gerald Brousseau Gardner

English civil servant, author, occultist, and Witch, 1884-1964. Easily the most important figure in the creation of modern Wicca, Gerald Gardner spent most of his life as an English colonial bureaucrat. Born to a wealthy family in England, near ...

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Norse Gods & Goddesses

Partial List of the Norse Gods, Goddesses & Other Supernatural Beings Their Lore, Powers & Influence The Names of the deities are in the old Norse language while the Rune names are in German. (Note: Many of the correspondences given in ...

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Doreen Valiente

English Witch and author, 1922-1999. Among the most influential figures in modern Wiccan history, Valiente was born in south London but raised in the West Country, where Witchcraft folklore was a significant part of everyday life well into the ...

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Coven

In Scottish folklore and modern Pagan practice, a group of Witches. The traditional number of members in a coven is thirteen, and Margaret Murray, whose writings on medieval Witchcraft were a major source for modern Wicca, insisted that this was an ...

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The Great Rite

THE GREAT RITE is a term for a sexual union, either actual or symbolic, that is usually part of the third-degree initiation ceremony in many Wiccan/Witchcraft Traditions. The Great Rite is the wedding of the masculine and feminine, the God and ...

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Magic Provides an Alternative Viewpoint

Where in the world is magic? It is not in science, which denies the reality and value of anything not amenable to the scientific method. It is not in religion. The Church has historically looked upon magic as devilish, and in modern times regards it ...

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Carl Llewellyn Weschcke�Father of the New Age

The New Age has been defined as the "Name for a movement covering a wide variety of practices that were alternative to traditional Western practices, although many have become normative. Included concepts are holistic thinking, mysticism, ...

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The Well Worn Path Review

Summary: A deck that is specifically directed toward Pagans, Witches and Wiccans. Not a Tarot, the forty cards represent foundational Pagan concepts. While not for Rider-Waite-Smith purists, this deck is well-suited to the many tens of thousands of ...

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Building Empathy in These Tough Times

When I first came up with the idea of writing the book Spells for Tough Times, I did so because I knew people out there needed help. They may need help with their finances, they may need help with their families, they may need help with their health; whatever the topic, there are people in this world in need, and it seems we often tend to forget... read this article

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